WASHINGTON—Home-loan data to be released Wednesday will show whether applications rose for the fifth-straight week as borrowers took advantage of attractive rates to refinance.
The Mortgage Bankers Association is scheduled to report its index of home-loan application volume for the week ended Feb. 1 at 7 a.m. EST. The seasonally adjusted index surged last week to the highest level since March 2004, fueled by a rush of refinancing applications.
For the week that ended Jan. 25, the trade group's seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application volume rose 7.5 percent to 1054.9, as a 22.1 percent jump in refinancing applications outweighed a 17.7 percent drop in purchase applications.
Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, reported last week that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages in the U.S. averaged 5.68 percent, up from 5.48 percent a week earlier. That had been the lowest level in nearly four years.
The mortgage bankers' index, which stood at 100 at its onset in March 1990, is derived from a survey of major lenders representing about half of the U.S. mortgages made each week. It does not include loans made by nonbank lenders.
The index has fluctuated over the past 18 months after sinking in June 2006 to 529.6, its lowest level since 2002. It peaked at 1,856.7 in May 2003 at the height of the housing boom.
The mortgage industry's woes, which started with rising defaults among borrowers with weak credit and spread to better-quality loans, have shuttered dozens of lenders and led to multibillion dollar losses. On Tuesday, GMAC LLC said it lost $724 million in the fourth quarter of 2007 due to poor performance at its residential lending division.
